


for where you go i will go.

by thenapkinthief



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-22
Updated: 2012-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-31 14:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenapkinthief/pseuds/thenapkinthief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They decide on Paris. It's a matter of convenience mostly. It is closer than anywhere else they would chose so no one can really object to the idea; they're both of age and they have each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for where you go i will go.

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "bobbed hair and whiskey in the Jazz Age".

Matthew will not break his engagement with Lavinia. She begs for her sake, for his and Mary's. She breaks it off herself, and still he refuses. He leaves for Manchester to let her recover and says he'll be back to marry her.

His disregard of her wishes only strengthens them.

And he is an idiot, for it is Mary who stays at her bedside, and it is Mary who listens.

Mary listens. Mary gives into her.

Mary takes her away.

 

("Our great escape," Mary promises quietly, a beacon of hope to work towards as Lavinia still recovers her strength.

It works.)

 

They decide on Paris. It's a matter of convenience mostly. It is closer than anywhere else they would chose so no one can really object to the idea; they're both of age and they have each other.

They spend the ferry voyage ignoring the lavish suites Mary has booked with her allowance and enjoy the scent of the water and the light spray that reaches them when they lean over too far. They laugh and Lavinia has never felt so free.

Mary turns to her, a mischievous glint she's never quite seen in her eyes before. "What would you think of a bob?" She nods over to a woman to their left. The woman's hair is easily lifted and whipped by the breeze. _Freedom_.

"Matthew wouldn't think us very feminine."

Mary's smile is wicked, her cheeks flushed from the wind and the sun. "Matthew isn't in Paris."

Lavinia can't help but smile back and thinks perhaps she isn't the only one who needed to leave.

 

In the end however it is finally Lavinia who forces them to go through with it.

Lavinia sits at Mary's dressing table with a pair of scissors on her lap and her hair unbound.

"We couldn't!" Is Mary's response but there's that glint in her eye and Lavinia smiles innocently. It's all it takes.

Mary kneels in front of her and Lavinia passes her the scissors. Lavinia smiles nervously as Mary takes a lock of her hair and cuts it off at her shoulder. The ginger lock falls to her lap, and she smiles.

Mary turns her back towards Lavinia. She tries not to think about the softness of the dark hair, or the ease with which Mary moves to respond to her touch as she releases coils of long hair from pins. She in turn cuts a lock of Mary's hair. But it does not fall, Lavinia catches it, wraps it about her fingers.

"A souvenir." She says quietly.

Mary smiles and grabs Lavinia's hair from her lap before going to ring for the bell for someone more experienced to finish the job.

"Shall we have matching lockets made," Lavinia jokes.

 

Mary is determined to buy them both a whole new wardrobe to suit their new hair. They buy sheer stockings and no corsets.

They buy matching lockets.

Lavinia looks at Mary as if she's ridiculous when she spots the jewellers. "You started it," is all Mary says. They choose the same design, one in silver, one in gold. They fasten them around each other's neck and it feels like a promise hanging around their necks. It is reassuring as they decide to embrace their escape from all they've known.

 

With Mary's name and looks it is impossible for them not to get invited to parties.

For the most part they are surprisingly tame. There is more smoking and more drinking and more _everything_ really. But it is _France_ so it doesn't really shock them.

It is, of course, when they go to visit an old friend of the Dowager Countess that they feel what might truly be in store for the coming years. The moment they enter they are surrounded by jazz emitting from a piano in the corner of an over crowded drawing room. It is a sound whose strains have haunted them about Paris but now they are immersed in.

Lavinia can't help the small grin of anticipation and looks over to Mary to find her staring. If Lavinia knew Mary less she might've supposed she disapproved, but she does know her now and the look in her face is nothing but awe and eagerness. Lavinia can't help herself from pressing a kiss to Mary's cheek. Mary turns surprise evident in the furrow of her brow but she smiles brightly.

When Mary smiles like that Lavinia thinks that the world would follow Mary into hell gladly and Lavinia _knows_ that she would be powerless to resist even if she wanted to.

 

(A month passes.

They ignore the telegrams that pile up in their rooms. Ones from Matthew, ones from Sir Richard, ones from both their fathers.

This is their escape and no man shall intrude here.)

 

On their six week anniversary of being in Paris the find themselves in a café after a party that some Americans had deemed too dull and they'd followed sharing swigs from a champagne bottle in a manner no one they knew would approve of.

Mary picks up an admirer from Chicago. She flirts with him shamelessly in her utterly Mary way that is entirely offensive and entrancing at the same time. 

He offers them a cigarette. Mary takes two. He goes to light her cigarette and her pale long fingers steal the lighter. She turns to Lavinia and stares straight into her eyes and lights the white stick between Lavinia's lips before doing her own. They inhale as one.

They cough for two minutes, and with the champagne bubbling them along they laugh for five clutching at each other.

 

During the day they travel to all the academies and museums. "Do you draw?" Lavinia asks as they stare at a renaissance work in the Louvre.

"Horribly. Edith was the only one of us who was ever any good at it."

"I used to quite enjoy it. It was the only time my governess let me be."

Mary's lips quirk upward.

When Lavinia returns the next day there is a box of pencils and a ream of paper sitting on her bed.

 

("Matthew is back at Downton," Lavinia says quietly clutching a letter between her hands.

"Father said."

Lavinia looks up but cannot judge anything for Mary's head is bowed determinedly over her novel. "Should we…" She trails off at the stiffening in Mary's shoulders.

The letter drops on top of all the others.)

 

They go to the cinema for the first time.

They sit in the darkened theatre entranced. They watch Mary Pickford make her way through a stage of London and Mary plays with Lavinia's hand as it lies on her lap.

They come out into the night and look at each other. Mary takes a step forward and plays with Lavinia's locket for a second. She smiles from under lashes then, Lavinia smiles back, helpless as always to resist doing so. Mary opens her mouth as if to say something, and then closes it again.

They walk home arm in arm.

 

They make friends. Or rather, Mary makes friends for them. Invitations come steadily to this or that party, or even a knock on the door from one of their more forward American companions asking them to a concert or a café.

There is a calm in the middle of the disorganisation and chaos they are making of their lives though. They have each other's presence to steady them on the walks home. There is the protection from loneliness in afternoons where Mary reads aloud and Lavinia begins to sketch again. 

 

Mary is invited to a party on the South Bank and they're both excited. Despite their adventures so far they've only heard about these parties. Parties filled with artists and writers. "You," Mary says, from her dressing table a lipstick to bright to be worn at home half-way to her lips, "will obviously be the artist. Shall I be your patron?"

Lavinia smiles and reaches down to fix the clasp of Mary's locket so it rests perfectly along the beginning of her spine. "You're my muse."

Mary smiles up at her in the mirror. For a second Lavinia's hands stay against the soft skin of Mary's neck. Mary looks down. "We should go."

Lavinia steps back.

"I think I prefer being your muse," Mary says quietly before rising.

Lavinia smiles.

 

(When Lavinia will pause and reflect later, these are moments that signal all that is to come.

The heartbreak they will cause, the loss of homes once precious, all of it would have been avoided if in that one moment they bite their tongues.

Lavinia will not regret speaking the truth.)

 

The party is all they anticipated and more. They are presented with tumblers full of whiskey the moment they enter. Mary arches her brow and sips delicately. It takes another two glasses before her sips have turned to casual swigs. "Lady Violet would keel over to see you drink like that," Lavinia announces from her place on the arm of Mary's seat.

"You doubt the strength of Granny," she smirks in response.

Lavinia laughs and takes her own un-lady like swig.

Three drinks later when a man comes up to ask Mary for a dance Mary puts on her haughtiest expression and watches the man's easy smile dim. "I am already somebody's muse," and with that she turns to Lavinia. "If you're the artist you have to lead darling."

They move venues twice, and have a brief flirtation with gin before deciding to stick with how they started, and a bottle of whiskey is passed between their small group they picked up at the party until it is empty. It is at this point they decide home may be a good option, and together they stumble upwards and out the door waving off the men who come to offer a ride or a chaperone.

They walk alternating between silence and laughter until, along the banks of the river, Mary takes her arm from where it is entwined with Lavinia's and runs for a few short paces before turning back, but instead of looking at Lavinia she looks up.

"I'm happy." Mary says quietly.

"You're drunk."

Mary laughs and half stumbles before catching herself. "Yes, yes I am." She still looks up and for a moment it is like the whole world stills. There is just Mary looking up at the stars with Parisian lights dancing off her dark hair and the illuminating her pale skin.

"You're beautiful," it is a whisper in the quiet of the pre-dawn hours of the city.

Mary looks at her and puts out her hands. Lavinia goes to her without hesitation.

Mary takes Lavinia's hand aligns it with her own and stares at them for a moment before entangling their fingers. She looks up into Lavinia's eyes. Lavinia squeezes Mary's hand. It is all it takes for Mary to press forward. Her lips dry and close and chaste but _there_ against Lavinia's. Perhaps it is meant to be a shocked gasp when Lavinia opens her mouth but it turns into an invitation. Their hands entwined they kiss on the bank of the Seine.

 

("Our great escape," Lavinia will whisper playing with the locket, her palm brushing the top of Mary's bare breast as they lie in bed.

"No going back?" And Lavinia will hear the note of fear in Mary's voice.

"Why else would we call it a escape?" She will smile into Mary's kiss and the sun will rise.)


End file.
